Influences in Progressive Movement

              I think one of the biggest areas affected by the the progressive movement was the working conditions. The working conditions in this era were horrible, they were so bad because people didnt have unions or labor laws to protect them from such long hours, stressful positions, and unsanitary or unsafe conditions. For example, in New York, in the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory, a textile factory, the workers there worked on the 7th and 8th floors, in very closed quarters, and there was a fire, and the conditions were so bad in this factory that they had no where to go, all the fire exits were closed off by equipment, and the only options were elevators, but youre not suppoused to use elevators during fires. This caused the woman to jump off the building and take their own lives, or have their lives taken by the fire. This led to more worker unions being created to help lower these harsh conditions and better the life of the workers who had been mistreated by their superiors.

I think what the American people did for expanding the west was not a very good Idea. They moved the railroad way to fast for production, and because of this these railroads drove up the prices. Not only that, they treated the Indian people horribly, they gave them almost no freedom which caused them to attack the people building the railroad, and they killed the lifeblood of the Native American people, which was buffalo to almost extinction. Then because of this crazy fast rail road expansion, bussiness's started opening all over the place, with not enough customers and, to send goods across the country was too expensive because the railroads had to pay off their debts, and had monopolys of the rail roads to control prices. This led to the farmers going bankrupt and creating the Populism idea that the high bankers and wall street gurus created this problem by them having too much power, and expanding the west too fast. Creating a vicious cycle, that the populism idea is still continued on today.